Call KCIC's Managing Director, Jokowi Evaluates The Number Of Passengers Who Are Still Far From Target

Illustration - Fast Train

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) summoned the President Director of PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC) Dwiyana Slamet Riyadi and several cabinet ministers to evaluate passenger trends and saleshailing high-speed train performance after nine months of operation.

"He wants to see how the passenger trend is, then related to infrastructure, access roads, everything is evaluated," said Dwiyana after meeting President Jokowi as reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, July 24.

During the meeting, he continued, Jokowi also asked what support the government could provide to further support the operation of the high-speed train.

Dwiyana added that Jokowi also discussed further cooperation with China, especially regarding service security.

Deputy Minister of SOEs Kartika Wirjoatmodjo revealed that although the performance of the high-speed train is considered good, the number of passengers so far is still below the initial target of as many as 29,000 passengers per day.

"If yesterday's traffic, the high-speed train had reached 24,000 (passengers per day). This is still a little below (the target), we will continue to pursue it," said the man who is familiarly called Tiko.

He estimates that KCIC could pursue the target number of passengers in the next three years.

In order to increase the number of PASS passengers, the government plans to increase the frequency of train travel from 48 trips to 62 trips per day.

"So, we also add more frequency, we hope that there will be more passengers," said Tiko.

For your information, KCIC noted that since its operation on October 17, 2023, the number of passengers on the FIRST train has reached 4 million passengers.

This is the first fast train service in Indonesia and Southeast Asia on the Jakarta-Bandung route and serves four stations, namely Halim, Karawang, Padalarang, and Tegalluar.